A good number of beginning guitarists get frustrated early on by grabbing a chord book trying many of the exotic chords and generally become overwhelmed and frustrated by the sheer number of chords and the complex nature of some of them. What the hell is a Ddim7th? Well, I won't be covering that in this post, but if you want to get a good foundation to playing guitar -- one that will increase your enjoyment of the guitar plus give you the ability to strum hundreds, if not thousands of songs, then master these ten chords.
The technical definition of a "Chord" is simply a simultaneous sounding of three or more notes together.
While I recommend a good chord book to beginning guitar players, they have a fundamental weakness in that they are kind of like a dictionary with no definition. In other words, they show hundreds of chords with no context as to what each chord is good for.
There is little point in trying to learn all of these chords in order, just as in my dictionary example, it would make little sense to learn the English language by learning each word in order alphabetically. Thus, I recommend learning these ten key chords first. Most are relatively easy to master. I would suggest taking a look at my post about muscle memory and sleep to utilize while learning these chords.
1st Set - Chords 1 - 3. The G, C, and D chord.
These three are the bread and butter of rock and roll playing. This three chord combination is probably used in more songs than any other. In music theory, it is represented as a I - IV - V chord sequence. In this case the Key of G . Simply the "I" is the key, and the others are steps from that key. In this case, G is one, so as you count up A would be two, B would be three, C would be four, D would be five, E would be six, F would be seven.
The Key of G is very popular especially in Country music. But you will recognize this chord progression in many genres. Practice these three chords and practice switching between them in different combinations.
2nd Set - The A, D, and E Chord.
You've already learned the D chord, so there are only two new ones to learn in this set. The key of A is also typically a I - IV - V chord progression, which is very popular in rock music. Any song played in G, can be transposed to A with this chord set, but it will be higher in pitch.
The E chord is perhaps the fullest sounding open chord in my opinion and I frequently use it to check tuning. If you can hear any particular string sounding over the others while playing an E chord, your guitar is probably a little out of tune.
3rd Set - The C, F, and G Chord.
Again we already know two of these chords, so now we only have to learn one new one - The F chord. This chord is usually somewhat difficult for the beginner, but it's not terrible. The trick and difficulty usually is barring the 1st and 2nd strings (the smallest) with your index finger. This simply means you are going to be fretting (pushing down) the first two strings on the first fret with your index finger. Otherwise it is very much like the fingering of a C chord only everything is a string higher (higher in pitch).
This chord progression in the Key of C is slightly less popular, but it is important to master. Keep practicing with the F chord and it will come easy soon enough.
Well that's all for this post. You've learned the A, C, D, E, F, G chords. You are well on your way. In the next part we will cover one more chord progression and a couple of Minor chords. Good luck!
This article by: J. Corey Lewis - ©2008 - All Rights Reserved
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